


Put Your Arms Around Me

by snewvilliurs



Series: The NORA House Chronicles [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 19:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snewvilliurs/pseuds/snewvilliurs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Established relationship; a romantic study of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put Your Arms Around Me

Rygdea’s lying back with his head pillowed on his arm, eyes closed and breathing slow.  His chest is bare, and his pants lie low on his hips, enough so that Lebreau can run a finger into the dip there, just beside the bone, watching his face to make sure he doesn’t stir.  She isn’t dressed much, either, and it’s mildly surprising to her that having her chest crushed against his isn’t nearly as uncomfortable as she thought it would be; the weight of her body against his doesn’t seem to bother him, either. 

She cranes her neck, resting her chin on his shoulder, and smiles as she looks at his sleeping face, the way his baby-soft hair falls on the bridge of his nose, and the prickle of his short beard against her lips.  There’s beard burn on her thighs and she isn’t complaining, though she doesn’t know if there’s enough energy left in her muscles so that she could even try to stand—not that she particularly wants to, because Rygdea’s warm and firm and so, so pretty.  The comfort she’s feeling just lying there with him with one of his arms around the small of her back scares her a little, and at the same time, it doesn’t, to the point where she’s beginning to wonder if she’s really just afraid of the fact that it doesn’t scare her as much as she thinks it should. 

She shifts, though just barely, and runs a hand along his ribs, then to his side; just below the last bone, there’s a bullet scar, old by maybe seven to eight years, right in a spot that makes him extremely lucky it didn’t hit anything—lucky he’s alive.  It makes her wonder, briefly, how it got through his armour, because the Cavalry is ( _was_ , rather) well-protected, but maybe this was before, when he was just a regular Guardian Corps agent with the cloth uniform like Lightning’s.  He doesn’t talk much about that time, when he was so bored with his job he was just ready to give up and quit until he met Cid Raines, who de doesn’t talk about much either, after all the misplaced trust and the lies and the Fall. 

He doesn’t have very peaceful dreams about it either, and when he can be like he is now, it’s a victory.

There’s a scar on his shoulder, too, more recent, and this one she remembers: she pulled it out of his flesh with her own hands, slippery with his blood after trying to stop it from flowing out of him and failing.  It’s hasn’t scarred as nicely as the other one that was taken care of by a real military medic and AMP magic, but at least it’s healed, and he’s fine.  She only had a scar or two to compete with against him, herself—mostly old cooking knife scars born out of beginner’s clumsiness—because Gadot and Snow have always taken hits for her, and she’s had their blood on her hands a fair amount of times, too, but she remembers Rygdea’s on her skin, hotter than theirs.  Burning, like his touch and his kisses. 

She stills, breathes him in—his cologne is woodsy and airy at the same time, a little macho-manly and a little sweet just like he is—and burrows her face in the crook of his neck.  Then, his hand moves from her waist and his fingers begin to brush feather-light up and down the dip of her spine, between the band of her bra and the waist of her panties, deliberately but subtly pushing the edge down even lower with each stroke.  Smiling, she wiggles a bit and presses a kiss to his pulse before pulling back enough to meet sky blue eyes with her own. 

“Hey, beautiful,” he says, and even through the groggy strain in his voice, that tone makes her shiver. 

He says it like it’s not just her face, not just her appearance; like he looks at all of _her_ and sees something worth nothing less than that word and everything more.  She’s been called beautiful before, but not in that tone: a tone she’s only heard from Gadot when he says something like “hey, crazy” with all the affection he has for her and no one else, not quite brotherly—Snow’s the brotherly one, and Gadot’s always had a little something more that he never did.  But Rygdea has another little something more than even Gadot. 

In all her wonder, Lebreau only makes a small sound, or replies something simple and stupid, but all her does is smile at her in return. 

“Come on, pull back a little so I can look at you,” he says, and it makes him sound a bit like a loved-up teenager, although there’s something definitely mature and experienced in the way he taps her cheek playfully. 

She wonders if he’s been in love before—but of course he has.  Just because she never has (because she refuses to count _that_ ) doesn’t mean he hasn’t.  She pulls back, as instructed, putting her weight on her arms by each side of his head to hover directly above him, smiling down expectantly.  He smiles in return, and looks at her long and quiet, bringing a hand up (Etro, it still smells like—) to push back her hair from her face in a way that can be called nothing other than loving.  Then, he makes a soft sound at the back of his throat like someone looking at a particularly breathtaking picture at a museum, and kisses her. 

This is when she thinks, having seen it in his eyes: _he’s in love with me_.  And, seeing it in her heart: _I’m in love with him_.  It’s cheesy, and nauseating, and ridiculous, and she laughs the silliness and the happiness against his cheek so sudden he can only laugh too, wrapping his arms around her. 

“What’s so funny, little lady?” 

And she answers, with her lips to his and without her voice: _I’m an idiot, and I love you_. 


End file.
